What are the steps to develop and implement a sales territory expansion strategy?

1 Assess your current situation

Evaluating your current sales performance is the first step in identifying your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A SWOT analysis can help you with this. For instance, consider how you are performing against sales targets and quotas, how satisfied existing customers are, how competitive the market is, how efficient and effective your sales processes and systems are, and how well your salespeople are trained, motivated, and rewarded. Answering these questions will give you a better understanding of your current situation, allowing you to determine if you have the capacity and potential to expand your sales territory.

2 Define your expansion goals

The next step is to set your expansion goals and objectives. You need to be SMART when defining your goals, ensuring that they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For instance, you may want to increase sales revenue by a certain percentage within a certain timeframe, enter new markets or regions by a certain date, acquire new customers or accounts by a certain date, or launch a new product or service in a new territory by a certain date. Your expansion goals should align with your overall business strategy and vision and be realistic and attainable given your resources and capabilities.

3 Identify your target markets

The third step is to research and select your target markets or regions for expansion. To identify the best opportunities for your business, you need to conduct a thorough market analysis. You can use various criteria, such as size and growth potential of the market, customer needs, competitive landscape, legal and environmental factors, distribution channels, and entry barriers, to segment and evaluate your potential markets. Additionally, you should consider your value proposition and differentiation factors when choosing your target markets. Aim for markets with a high demand for your product or service, low competition, and favorable conditions.

4 Design your expansion plan

Creating a detailed plan for your expansion strategy is the fourth step. You need to outline the specific actions, tasks, and responsibilities that you and your sales team will take to achieve your goals. Your plan should include a timeline and budget, a sales territory map to define the boundaries and segments of your target markets, a sales force structure to determine size, roles, and allocation of your salespeople, a sales compensation plan to set incentives, commissions, and bonuses for your salespeople, a sales training plan to prepare your salespeople for new markets and challenges, and a sales performance management plan to monitor and evaluate results. It should be clear, comprehensive, and consistent. You should also communicate the plan to stakeholders to get their buy-in and support.

5 Execute your expansion strategy

The fifth step in your expansion plan is to execute sales activities in your target markets. You should adjust the plan as needed based on the market conditions and feedback. Prospecting and qualifying potential customers, building rapport and trust, presenting and demonstrating the product or service, handling objections, negotiating terms, closing sales, providing after-sales service and support, generating referrals, and repeating business are all key tasks for you and your sales team. To help with the sales process, you should use various sales tools and techniques such as CRM software to manage customer relationships, sales automation software to streamline tasks, sales analytics software to track performance and trends, sales enablement software to access and share content, and sales communication software for collaboration.

6 Evaluate your expansion results

The sixth and final step is to review your expansion results and assess your success and areas for improvement. You should measure and analyze your sales performance and outcomes against your expansion goals and objectives, using various metrics and indicators such as sales revenue and growth rate, sales volume and market share, customer acquisition and retention rate, customer satisfaction and loyalty score, sales productivity and efficiency, as well as sales profitability and return on investment. Additionally, you should collect feedback from your sales team and customers through surveys, interviews, reviews, testimonials, social media, or online forums to understand their experiences and opinions. By evaluating your expansion results, you can identify your strengths and weaknesses, celebrate your achievements, learn from mistakes, refine your strategy, and plan for future growth opportunities.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?